Adventures in Software Development and Life

Month: August 2007

I find myself in my final year of College, at last. This marks yet another year of changing faces, places, and alike. The common thread among all my education has been change. College is about adapting, learning, and changing.

I begun my college career in 2001. Yes I have been in school for going on 7 years now. I guess I am not a traditional student per say. I am thankful for my experience and I think I have an interesting perspective on college life. The landscape of colleges is totally different now as compared to 2001. I think this is true in about any area of life. Things change, times change, change occurs.

There has been such a bigger emphasis on “group work” in the past few years as opposed to earlier years in my college career. I think this is valuable experience for the work field. Working with people is vital in any area of the “real world”. The way we interact with people is crucial for success. I think I am an easy fellow to get along with and that goes a long way.

I hope this year, as opposed to years passed, I am going to integrate things from my classes into my blog postings. I think this will be interesting and fun to see what people think of the things I learn in school. This semester I have some fun classes like UI Design and Implementation, JAVA II, Network Security, and Astronomy. Hopefully this will keep me fairly excited about the subjects that I am learning.

I am ready for change, and we must remember that change is not bad. Change is the essence of life.

There’s a shift occurring in the Computing Industry. A recent report out of mac.co.uk states that Apple is driving a “transformational” shift in PC sales. Somewhere up to 30% of people that are going to purchase a laptop in the next 90 days want to buy a MacBook. I think we shouldn’t get caught up in predictions, but it is an interesting statistic.

If I were going to buy a laptop in the next 90 days I would want to purchase a MacBook. I’m not looking to buy a laptop though, I’m sticking with my thinkpad that continues to chug along.

The reason I feel people are being drawn to Apple products is because the platform is independent. Just about everything I do now is via the Web.

Gmail

Google Docs

Google Reader

Myspace/Facebook/Twitter etc

I’m not stuck to Windows to do any of my daily tasks. Sure there are going to be products that I could not use on a Mac and vice versa there are products I could not use on Windows. I think this is where Apple is making up the most ground.

Parallels – Virtualization to run Windows or Linux

Boot Camp – Run Windows on a MAC, no virtualization

VMware/VirtualBox – These work on all platforms and do the virtualization thing

They are focused on their customers’ needs and wants. You are going to pay a hefty price, but you will be satisfied. Apple gets it, maybe just Steve Jobs.

The other part of Apple’s success lies in the fact that their products are hot right now. I’ll be honest, I think the MacBooks look really nice in white and black. They are simplistic and are easy on the eye. I think Dell is trying to come out with different colored laptops, which looks nice, but it might be a little late in the game.

The “operating system scene” has really turned into a three horse race: Windows, MacOS, and Linux. It is a race that doesn’t really matter, because we are finding out that locking into one OS is bad for business. I love Ubuntu and I’m apart of the doubling of the Linux desktop in the past year. It doesn’t matter, the platform is moot when everything is on the Web.